Catastrophe of Chicago Port

The catastrophe of Port Chicago is the accidental explosion of two cargo liners of Munition S in the course of loading, the July 17th 1944, in Port Chicago, in California (the United States). The catastrophe made 320 dead, 400 wounded and of very material extensive damage.

Context

During the Second world war, the American fleet of the Pacific was supplied in ammunition by a deposit, called the “ Naval Am Depot ”, located at Port Chicago, 50 km in the North-East of San Francisco, on the river Sacramento (). The locality of Chicago Port, populated 1 500 inhabitants, was with 2,5 km of the deposit. The naval base of Island Pond, located in the vicinity, also had an ammunition dump where the loading of the cargo liners was carried out.

The construction of the deposit of Chicago Port had been authorized the December 9th 1941, two days after the Attaque on Pearl Harbor, and the deposit started to function in November 1942. The site of Chicago Port had been used as shipyard during the First World War. It was served by three railway lines: Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Western Pacific. The ammunition came mainly from a factory located at Hawthorne (Nevada). On their arrival with Port Chicago, the coaches were placed between walls of protection out of concrete. The train advanced then on a pier along which could accost two cargo liners. The barracks of the sailors in charge of handling, all of the conscripts Afro-Americans, was distant of 1,5 km.

The navy American (U.S. Navy), which had a long tradition of segregation with regard to the Blacks, recruited some since 1932, but of limited number. They were confined with tasks subordinates, in the kitchens, or dangerous, like the loading of the ammunition. In 1942, the U.S. Navy was resigned to accept Blacks in the general services, but in units which were reserved to them. There was 150 000 Blacks in the U.S. Navy, but they did not carry out any service at sea and there was no black officer.

At the time of the catastrophe, there was with the deposit of Port Chicago 1 400 black conscripts, 71 officers, 106 guards of navy and 230 civilians. Neither the officers, all white, nor the men had received the least formation to handle the ammunition. There were security instructions, but the men assigned to this task underwent an enormous pressure to carry out the loadings as soon as possible. The officers made even bets on the quantity of ammunition which them team could charge in 8 hours and they threatened the men of sanctions so that work advances more quickly.

The loading of the ammunition in the cargo liners was carried out without interruption. Three teams of 125 men followed one another every 8 hours. The work conditions were very painful. The men manually transported the ammunition without protective gloves, or charriots. The bombs of strong power were rolled since the coaches by a slope, to the pier, then placed in nets of loading extended on the ground. The ammunition were very varied: balls of small gauge, cluster bombs, incendiary bombs, bombs with hollow-charges, bombs until 2 000 pounds. Then the nets were descended in the hold by means of the arms from the ship and the ammunition were arranged by layers, isolated by shavings.

The explosion

In the evening of the July 17th 1944, two boats were in the course of loading:

Liberty-ship S E.A. Bryan had 4 178 tons (metric) of ammunition and explosives on board, after four days of loading, and 98 black conscripts worked there. On board were also the crew of 31 men of the U.S. Merchant Marine and 13 armed guards of marine.
Liberty-ship S Quinault Victory had been moored with the landing stage for 6 p.m. this evening and in the course of loading by 100 black conscripts. It was about its first voyage. On board the 36 men of crew and 17 guards were.

A barge of firemen of the Coast Guard was also moored with the pier, on which 430 tons of bombs were waiting to be charged, an engine and 16 coaches with 3 civilians and a navy in sentinel.

An enormous explosion took place with 22 h 18. She was heard to 300 km and the shock wave was felt until Boulder (Colorado), to 800 km. According to the witnesses, there was initially a white flash shining accompanied by a deaf detonation, followed, six seconds later by a more violent explosion when the contents of E.A. Bryan exploded. A column of fire and smoke rose with more than 3 km height above Chicago Port. Scraps of heated metal with white and not exploded bombs were projected in the air and fell down up to 3 km of the place of the explosion. The crew of a plane of the Army which flew to 3 000 meters of altitude saw passing from the pieces of metal as large as a house. According to the copilot, the “ fireworks ” one minute lasted.

Consequences

The explosion, whose cause was never given with certainty, dug a crater of 22 meters depth, 100 meters broad and 230 meters length in bank of the Sacramento river. The long pier out of 400 meters wooden, the engine and the coaches, the S E.A. Bryan and 320 men disappeared, including 202 black sailors. There did not remain only one identifiable piece of the S E.A. Bryan and the poop of the S Quinault Victory rested, turned over to 200 m of the pier.

The surviving black conscripts were sent to the base very close to Island Pond. A few days later they accepted the order to do the same work under the same conditions as in Port Chicago. Fifty of them refused, causing the mutiny and the lawsuit of Pond Island. The U.S. Navy repurchased the town of Chicago Port in the Années 1960. The deposit was incorporated in the “ Naval Concord Weapons Station ”, which was an important wearing of loading of ammunition during the Guerre of Vietnam. It was also, in the years 1970 and 1980, the site of peace marches.

Each year takes place on the site a ceremony of the memory. In 1994, was inaugurated a memorial which recalls the role of Chicago Port during the Second world war as well as the explosion of the July 17th 1944, which was the industrial catastrophe most fatal of the war on the territory of the United States.

External bonds and sources

the site of the deposit of Chicago Port on Wikimapia
the version of the U.S. Maritime Navy
U.S. Service Veterans
Theory of Peter Vogel on a nuclear explosion.
Naval Chicago Port National Magazine Monument
Catastrophe of Chicago Port: resources for students and professors
Rotten Library

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